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Writing A Bibliography: APA Format: Basics
Writing A Bibliography: APA Format: Basics
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Below are standard formats and examples for basic bibliographic information recommended by
the American Psychological Association (APA). For more information on the APA format, see
http://www.apastyle.org.
Basics
Your list of works cited should begin at the end of the paper on a new page with the centered
title, References. Alphabetize the entries in your list by the author's last name, using the letter-byletter system (ignore spaces and other punctuation.) Only the initials of the first and middle
names are given. If the author's name is unknown, alphabetize by the title, ignoring any A, An, or
The.
For dates, spell out the names of months in the text of your paper, but abbreviate them in the list
of works cited, except for May, June, and July. Use either the day-month-year style (22 July
1999) or the month-day-year style (July 22, 1999) and be consistent. With the month-day-year
style, be sure to add a comma after the year unless another punctuation mark goes there.
Underlining or Italics?
When reports were written on typewriters, the names of publications were underlined because
most typewriters had no way to print italics. If you write a bibliography by hand, you should still
underline the names of publications. But, if you use a computer, then publication names should
be in italics as they are below. Always check with your instructor regarding their preference of
using italics or underlining. Our examples use italics.
Hanging Indentation
All APA citations should use hanging indents, that is, the first line of an entry should be flush
left, and the second and subsequent lines should be indented 1/2".
If there is more than one author, use an ampersand (&) before the name of the last author. If there
are more than six authors, list only the first one and use et al. for the rest.
Place the date of publication in parentheses immediately after the name of the author. Place a
period after the closing parenthesis. Do not italicize, underline, or put quotes around the titles of
shorter works within longer works.
Format Examples
Books
Format:
Author's last name, first initial. (Publication date). Book title. Additional information. City of
publication: Publishing company.
Examples:
Allen, T. (1974). Vanishing wildlife of North America. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic
Society.
Boorstin, D. (1992). The creators: A history of the heroes of the imagination. New York: Random
House.
Nicol, A. M., & Pexman, P. M. (1999). Presenting your findings: A practical guide for creating
tables. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Searles, B., & Last, M. (1979). A reader's guide to science fiction. New York: Facts on File, Inc.
Toomer, J. (1988). Cane. Ed. Darwin T. Turner. New York: Norton.
Tobias, R. (1991). Thurber, James. Encyclopedia americana. (p. 600). New York: Scholastic
Library Publishing.
Website or Webpage
Format:
Online periodical:
Author's name. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number,
Retrieved month day, year, from full URL
Online document:
Author's name. (Date of publication). Title of work. Retrieved month day, year, from full URL
Note: When citing Internet sources, refer to the specific website document. If a document is
undated, use "n.d." (for no date) immediately after the document title. Break a lengthy URL that
goes to another line after a slash or before a period. Continually check your references to online
documents. There is no period following a URL.
Note: If you cannot find some of this information, cite what is available.
Examples:
Devitt, T. (2001, August 2). Lightning injures four at music festival. The Why? Files. Retrieved
January 23, 2002, from http://whyfiles.org/137lightning/index.html
Dove, R. (1998). Lady freedom among us. The Electronic Text Center. Retrieved June 19, 1998,
from Alderman Library, University of Virginia website:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/subjects/afam.html